Categories

John Lennon RIP – How I Heard the News

The history books will tell you that John Lennon was murdered on December 8th 1980 – but in the the UK it was early in the morning on the 9th.

I woke up late that morning, and didn’t put the radio on before going to school. I cycled to school as usual, not knowing anything had happened, only to be met by my best friend, and fellow Beatles fan, Dalton, who looked really angry, and was muttering about what some bastard had done to John Lennon. The then told me that John had been murdered. My first reaction was that it was another ‘Paul is dead’ type rumour, and that really he was OK.

However, that morning, the school assembly was taken by students, and they played ‘In My Life’ as a tribute to John. It’s there that the horrible fact really sank in. I also noticed that a lot of fellow students, and also staff, were moved by the announcement too.

After school, I went home and bought the evening newspapers, which had John on the front cover, and played Beatles/John songs for the rest of the day – only to stop to watch the many tributes to John on TV.

At the time, I had never been that affected by anyone’s death before.

Fast forward to 2007. My daughter Lilia, was born at approx 6am on December 9th. John Lennon was shot around 4am London time on December 9th 1980, and died about 2 hours later.

Post navigation

2 thoughts on “John Lennon RIP – How I Heard the News”

A lovely account, Richard. Like you I was still at school. I found out when my gran brought me my morning cup of tea, and knowing my Beatlemania, she told me John had been shot.
I don’t recall any response from school, but my friends naturally talked about it.
It might seem strange, but I don’t recall it having a big emotional impact. I think that because I didn’t have personal memories of the Beatles, other than vague recollections of the Yellow Submarine film, and because of John’s low profile from the moment I became a fan in 1974, he had never seemed part of my life other than a figure from books and the records I listened to. And yet at that time I had all the Beatles records plus a complete set of his solo albums…

I was living in Florida & was with friends out for drinks. We were all shocked & saddened hearing the new of John’s senseless death! My self being a lifelong Beatle fan was devastated to hear he was gone. RIP John